Life is an Experiment in My Haunted Apartment

When I think about it, it seems like my apartment is haunted at Halloween - and pretty much most of the year!

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I feel like death warmed over. Struggling out from under the covers is like a digging out from a grave and becoming a zombie, just human enough to barely walk around but not much functioning between the ears. I’m definitely like this when I don’t get enough sleep due to my pain, which happens far too often.

I can be a witch when frustration over pain and my limitations become overwhelming. I even have a black cat for my familiar, my mischievious little Jaspurr! (and you can read about him and the lesson he teaches all of us HERE) Not only do I feel like an old hag, but I can get snarly and short-tempered. I’m not proud of it, but we all have our days of acting out. 

“Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. 

We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, 

to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.” 

~David Cronenberg 

I usually feel cold, particularly in the wintertime, and am always wrapped up like a mummy in layers of clothes and my ever-present bathrobe. I am actually in there, somewhere! With my foot and hip problems, I can be quite clumsy as I shuffle around the apartment in my slippers. 

My joints ache so much I think my skeleton is trying to get out of my body and run away. Unfortunately, it’s stuck where it is and I can’t run away from my aches either.

I may be part werewolf when I howl and whine at times when I’m really in a bad way and need to let it out. I know that the snuffling and snorting from my allergies surely fits here!

I think I must be Frankenstein’s monster. It’s like my body parts have been assembled willy-nilly from different donors and don’t really fit properly together. Given my forgetfulness and other nutty issues, I’m certain that mad scientist has given me the brain of ‘Abby Normal’! 

Most often I am a ghost. I haunt my apartment and rarely leave my comfortable environs. My family and friends do get some rare sightings of me as I flit in and then out of events - was she really here or just a figment of our imagination? I’m especially ghostlike when I cancel plans with people when I’m in too much pain to go anywhere; they are probably wondering if I truly exist since it happens so often!

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could just chant an incantation or wave a magic wand and be well? Or if all we needed to be healed is to drink a bubbling potion or steaming witch’s brew (minus the bat’s wings, grave dust, and zombie toenails!) There’s no spell book, no step-by-step guide, no simple list which tells you how to keep your body functioning perfectly and what you can do to overcome physical problems when they happen. 

All we can do is keep trying new things as they come along and be open-minded. We’ve got to be willing to follow through with treatments or therapies which might be time-consuming, uncomfortable, expensive, or inconvenient. We must be determined when a treatment fails to work for us to pick ourselves up and push on to the next one.

So here’s my message this Halloween weekend: Life is an Experiment! It’s all about trying this or doing that, whether we are talking about health or relationships or just life in general.

So when you look around your own haunted house, determine whether you have shut away into the dungeon any part of your life which needs to be moved to the laboratory and experimented with again. Don't be afraid to take a scary risk because there could be an unexpected transformation for the better - one which lasts far beyond the full moon and into the bright and hopeful light of day.

~* Happy Halloween! *~